


It Must Follow, As Night the Day

by catie_writes_things



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dai Li brainwashing, Established Relationship, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Forced Marriage, but they literally do not know it's fake or forced
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22566514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catie_writes_things/pseuds/catie_writes_things
Summary: AU from the end of book two.In the city of walls and secrets, sometimes people disappear. Katara and Zuko were two of those people.Six years later, with the war petered out into a fragile truce, the Avatar returns to Ba Sing Se on the winds of change to look for the missing Earth King - and, he hopes, locate his long-lost friend. Instead he finds Kara and Lee, a happily married couple living in the lower ring, who have no memory of him.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 122
Kudos: 473





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The premise of this story was inspired by [this anonymous ask](https://zutaradirectory.tumblr.com/post/190507895872/hi-im-looking-for-a-fic-where-the-dai-li) at the Zutara Fanfic Directory on tumblr.

_This above all: to thine own self be true,  
And it must follow, as the night the day,  
Thou canst not then be false to any man.  
\- Hamlet, act I, scene iii_

* * *

Kara was dreaming, and it was a very strange dream. She was in a dark room, the only lights a pair of lanterns, slowly spinning around her, stretching shadows this way and that in a steady rhythm. Outside the pulsing ring of light, there were gentle voices that sounded ominous nonetheless. She only caught snatches of what they said.

“...more than we’ve ever tried before…”

“...an anchor, someone she knows…”

“...he keeps asking about her…”

She wanted to cry out, to ask about  _ him _ as well. But the lights kept spinning, making her dizzy and confused. She knew something was wrong, but couldn’t remember what it was. If only the lights would stop…

A loud noise woke her suddenly, the sound of something being smashed, accompanied by shouting voices from the street below. Kara started out of bed, one hand flying instinctively to cover the bulge of her stomach, eyes searching the dark room in vain for the person who should have been lying next to her in the bed. 

“Here,” came her husband’s voice from the doorway, low and urgent, just audible over the noise in the street. It sounded like the riots that had ravaged the lower ring last summer all over again. Kara groped through the darkness, grateful the shutters of their little second-floor apartment were closed tight. 

Her hand finally found his. “Mama,” came another voice, small and frightened.

“Hush now, Hiro, Mama’s here,” Kara replied, taking the child from his father’s arms. Hiro immediately hid his face against her shoulder, and her husband drew her close to his chest. Their whole family held in one embrace, Kara felt safer. The chaos outside would, spirits willing, stay outside.

Soon Hiro settled and fell asleep, and the noise of the rioters passed on to some other street. Her eyes adjusted to the dark by now, Kara drew back from her husband slightly to look up at him. She could just make out the shape of his eyes, one fixed in a permanent squint by the scar that covered that side of his face. “Lee,” she whispered. “What’s happening?”

“They said Long Feng is dead,” Lee whispered back. “The Avatar has overthrown the Dai Li.”

* * *

In the immediate aftermath of that harrowing night, life went on more or less as usual in the lower ring. Shopkeepers sighed as they assessed damage and repaired broken windows, those who had been injured nursed their wounds, and no one came to help them - but that was as it had ever been. Lee returned to work at the foundry the very next day. It was harder work than his old job at the tea shop. He had longer hours and came home filthy with soot and sweat, and tired enough to drop. But the foundry paid better for firebenders, and with their growing family, they needed that money.

That day was laundry day in their building, and Kara joined the usual gathering in the courtyard with her neighbors - Su Li and her daughters who lived across the hall, the widow Peng who occupied the ground floor apartment with her son’s family, and Kai and Jai, the twin sisters who each lived in one of the third floor apartments with their husbands, who were also twins.

It was an ordinary domestic scene, the women bustling around the large tubs of water, scrubbing clothes and bedsheets clean, and Kara speeding the drying process along with her bending. Hiro and the other children ran about in the bright spring sunshine, laughing and playing without a care. Even the women were largely care-free, discussing the downfall of the Dai Li with no more particular excitement than any other bit of neighborhood gossip. Why should they be concerned, after all, when the fall of the Earth King at the hands of the Fire Nation six years ago, and the subsequent expulsion of the Fire Nation by Long Feng three years after that, and the proclamation of the Dai Li protectorate of the city, had all brought little change to their lives?

Lee came home from work that night a little later than usual, for there were still streets blocked by overturned carts and other wreckage, but aside from that it was an ordinary evening. They ate dinner, put Hiro to bed, and Kara worked on the clothes she was sewing for the new baby while Lee washed up. It was only once he finished and sat across the plain wooden kitchen table from her that the subject of politics came up at all.

“Did you even know the Avatar was in the city?” Kara asked, not looking up from her sewing.

“No,” Lee replied. “No one did.”

By “no one”, Kara knew he meant none of the other men at the foundry. She came to the end of the hem she was stitching, and tied off her thread. “Well, has he made any kind of announcement yet?”

“Not that I’ve heard.” Lee leaned back, draping one arm over the back of his chair and letting his face tilt towards the ceiling. “And who cares anyway?”

Kara gave a noncommittal hum as she cut the thread and turned the little baby gown so the right side was out. It was a dull version of the yellow shade that Earth Kingdom mothers put on their babies for good luck. She would have liked to dress her children in blue, of course, but that color was far too expensive in the lower ring of Ba Sing Se. The dark blue ribbon of her mother’s necklace was the only such luxury she had.

“I guess I’m just wondering why he did it,” she said with a shrug, folding the baby garment in her lap. “I’d think the Avatar would have bigger problems to worry about…”

“Or other people’s business to interfere in,” Lee interrupted.

Kara shot him a look of annoyance, but didn’t argue. The Avatar was a subject on which their opinions differed, and she probably shouldn’t have brought it up. “It doesn’t make sense to me,” she concluded, collecting her sewing supplies and returning them to their basket.

Lee sighed and got to his feet, taking the basket from her and putting it away on the shelf where it was kept, safely out of Hiro’s reach. “It doesn’t make sense to me either,” he admitted, taking her hand and lacing their fingers together. “But it’s not our concern, is it?”

“I guess not,” Kara agreed as he led her towards the bedroom. Who were they to the Avatar, after all?

* * *

Aang couldn’t help but feel that the former Earth King’s palace had not been improved by its open occupation by the Dai Li. Tapestries and vases had been stripped from the halls, walls whitewashed, gold ornaments sold off or melted down - and yet rather than achieving an asceticism that he could have admired, the effect was rather alienating. Long Feng, unlike the monks of the air temples, had cared nothing for beauty, proportion, or harmony.

But it was not aesthetic concerns that had brought the Avatar to Ba Sing Se, nor that primarily interested him now. He’d come on behalf of the minor kings to deliver an ultimatum, and enforced the consequences when that ultimatum was refused. Now, his job was research.

No one knew what had become of the Earth King Kuei. If he had been a prisoner during the Fire Nation occupation of his city, surely Azula would have paraded him through the streets in chains, or staged a public execution, but no such event had ever taken place. And when the new Fire Lord withdrew his support from Azula, and the Dai Li drove her out, there had been no mention of the Earth King then, either. Long Feng had simply declared himself Lord Protector of the city.

Of course, Aang reflected bitterly, the Earth King was hardly the only person to have disappeared without a trace in Ba Sing Se.

If Kuei was still alive, the minor kings wanted him back on the throne. If he was dead, his successor would have to be chosen. But first, the truth had to be uncovered, and the secret archives of the Dai Li were as good a place for the Avatar to begin his search as any.

And maybe, while he was there, he might find some clue as to what had happened to Katara.


	2. Chapter One

“Hard to believe it’s been six years,” Aang mused as they passed through the barren corridors of the palace that had been opulent on their last visit.

Beside him, Sokka shrugged. “I can believe it,” he said grimly. Aang waited, but he didn’t elaborate. Sokka wasn’t as talkative as he used to be, at least not with him. They didn’t see each other very much anymore, either. The young water tribe warrior had been persuaded to come to Ba Sing Se in the hopes of finding answers about his long-lost sister, but his world traveling days were over. He had responsibilities that kept him at the South Pole.

The Avatar’s responsibilities, on the other hand, kept him on the move.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Aang agreed, to fill the awkward silence. “A lot has happened.”

Katara’s disappearance had only been the beginning. Azula’s conquest of Ba Sing Se had followed immediately after, forcing the rest of their group to flee the city without conducting much of an investigation. Then there had been those agonizing months leading up to the eclipse, before the shock of General Iroh's rebellion had plunged the Fire Nation into schism. Even when Ozai was dead at last and the new Fire Lord declared the war between the nations to be over, there was an endless string of internal conflicts needing the Avatar’s attention, right up to the final defeat of the Dai Li that had brought him back here.

But now that he was back, Aang thought it was about time he got some answers.

The Dai Li archives were hidden away in one of the innermost wings of the palace, in a vast room with high, narrow windows set with green glass. This room had just so happened to catch fire the night of Long Feng’s downfall. That had been enough to arouse Aang’s suspicion that there was  _ something _ in there the Dai Li hadn’t wanted him to know, though he’d only just barely had time to put out the flames while dealing with the last of their agents. 

He had, after all, been dealing with them on his own. Sokka was only here to find his sister.

As they surveyed the damage now in the green-tinted morning light, it seemed the most recent records were the ones worst affected by the fire. Well, that suited their purposes just fine. Any information on the Earth King - or Katara - was likely to be in the older part of the archives by now. As would, Aang remembered with just a twinge of guilt, any information on the other person he was supposed to be looking for.

With a sigh, Aang reached into his tunic and fingered the paper of the latest letter he had received from Iroh. The Fire Lord wrote to him periodically, with updates on the still unstable situation in his nation, and occasionally advice, but always the same desperate question - had there been any word, any hint of where his nephew had gone?

It wasn’t that Aang was unsympathetic to Iroh’s position, trying to hold on to a throne without an heir, against a far younger rival. Nor was he ungrateful for the steps Iroh had taken to end the war. But while the Avatar certainly trusted the Fire Lord more than any of the other world leaders did, he could not claim to like the man. And his feelings towards his nephew, the disgraced prince who had nearly thwarted his own quest for peace more than once, and who had refused every offer of truce, were even more complicated.

Finding Kuei was what mattered most to the Earth Kingdom, and finding Zuko was what mattered most to the Fire Lord. But finding Katara was what mattered to Aang.

And to Sokka, who was already making a cursory search of the charred section of the archives. “It looks like a few things did survive,” he observed, pushing aside blackened rubble and dusting ashes off of one leather case of scrolls. The material was cracked and brittle, but the contents of the case were intact. They yielded nothing more than financial accounts from the last major sale of palace furniture, however. Sokka tossed them aside.

They quickly shifted their focus to the older, still intact sections of the archives. Aang made a few more attempts at conversation as they searched, but Sokka remained taciturn. 

It was frustrating work. To Aang’s disappointment, he discovered that many of the scrolls neatly packed away on the shelves were written fully or partially in code, and ranged from difficult to impossible for him to decipher. Even the labels - on those that were labeled - seemed to be code names. As he shifted through the contents of yet another shelf, Aang absently read the names aloud.

“Operation: Opal - that could be anything.” He handed that scroll off to Sokka, who wordlessly broke the seal and began reading. “Protocol: Lion Turtle - doesn’t sound very promising. Agent: Tigerdillo - huh, maybe…” But upon opening the scroll, the best that Aang could discern was that Agent Tigerdillo had been a document forger. Not what they were looking for.

The next few scrolls were all marked as “Asset”, and Aang rattled their code names off quickly as he shuffled through them. “Warhawk, Quicksand, Riptide, Orphan, Bloodroot...”

Sokka looked up from the Opal scroll. “What was that last one?”

“Bloodroot?” Aang repeated, pulling the scroll off the shelf. It looked the same as any of the others, closed with three dark green seals.

“The double-flowered bloodroot is a rare pai sho tile,” Sokka explained, setting aside the scroll he had been reading. “It’s the only tile that can counter the white lotus gambit.”

Aang frowned. “You think Long Feng knew about Iroh’s White Lotus?” Aang had only learned about the secret society’s existence himself after it had fractured. Not all of its members had approved of Iroh setting himself up as Fire Lord.

“If he did,” Sokka replied, “wouldn’t you want to know what he thought he could use against them?”

Whatever it was, Aang doubted it had anything to do with Katara. But then he chided himself for his narrow focus. If Sokka could remember there were other reasons they were here, he should be able to do the same.

Wordlessly, Aang broke the seals on the Bloodroot scroll. Sokka leaned over his shoulder to read as well. There were parts in code Aang couldn’t make heads or tails of, but the lines he could read…

“Well, that might have done it,” Sokka deadpanned, pointing to the line that indicated the asset’s true name.

What exactly the Dai Li had done to him wasn’t clear, but if Aang was reading the notes correctly, his file had been updated periodically, as recently as four months ago. And it claimed that Prince Zuko was still living in Ba Sing Se, in the lower ring.

* * *

The Avatar had spoken to the people of Ba Sing Se at last. He claimed that Long Feng was in fact alive, but the old king was still unaccounted for, and a provisional government was being set up. Among their first acts, a whole network of secret Dai Li prisons was being uncovered and liberated, and this matter concerned the men at the foundry far more than the missing king. For while some of the newly released prisoners were sons and brothers whose families had given them up for lost after they had merely criticized Long Feng’s rule, others were revolutionaries of a far more dangerous sort. Not everyone was happy to have them back on the streets.

It was typical of the Avatar, Lee thought bitterly as he and the other men from the foundry set out for home that evening, to swoop in without understanding anything and make a mess of a situation. He’d left the world to fend for itself for a century, and then returned with great fanfare, but as far as Lee could tell, the young airbender had never actually solved any of the world’s problems.

Kara disagreed, believing the mere presence of the Avatar gave people hope. But Lee knew that hope didn’t put food on anyone’s table, or protect anyone from the thugs of all nations that beat people down. He and Kara had both come to Ba Sing Se because, whoever was running things, it was a better place to live and work and raise a family than anywhere else they could get to. It was safe, unlike where he had come from.

As he crossed the bridge over the dirty canal that separated the industrial district of the lower ring from the residential area where they lived, Lee caught a glimpse of the sun setting over the city walls in the distance. Unconsciously, he straightened his tired, stooped posture just a little. Whatever the Avatar was up to, it wasn’t their problem, just like he’d told Kara. He had a family to provide for, a wife and a little boy waiting for him at home, and another child coming in a few months. They were his responsibility, and everything that had happened before he came to Ba Sing Se was in the past. Let it stay there.

The streets were fully cleared of rubble by now, so Lee was able to take the shortest route home. A few of the shopkeepers closing up for the night waved or called greetings as he and the other workers passed, which the men returned. Lee’s thoughts happily shifted to more immediate things, like getting home to wash off the grime of the foundry, and eat the stew that Kara was making for dinner. As he bid goodbye to his fellow workers and turned down the street where his apartment was located, so preoccupied was he with this simple goal that at first he barely even registered the voice shouting something in the distance.

But when he realized the source of the voice was a bald young man in orange making a beeline for him from the other end of the street, that got his attention.

“Zuko!” the young man was calling to him as he ran. Lee raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar name, glancing around to see if there was anyone else around he could be talking to. But the street was deserted, except for the old woman closing up the apothecary’s shop on the corner. “Zuko, you’re still here!” The youth was almost upon him now. He looked to be a few years younger than Lee, barely out of his teens, if that. And he had blue arrow tattoos visible on his scalp and arms.

“Who’s...Zuko?” Lee awkwardly asked the rapidly approaching Avatar, for there was no one else this could be.

The Avatar drew up short, skidding to a halt on the cobblestones. Now  _ he _ looked confused. “You’re…” he began, but then cut himself off. “Of course, your uncle said you used a different name here - Lee, right?”

“My name is Lee,” he confirmed. “But I don’t have an uncle. You must have me confused with someone else.” It had happened before. There were lots of Lees in the world, after all. He turned towards the door to his building, sure that was the end of it.

“What? No!” the Avatar exclaimed, grabbing him by the arm. “Don’t you remember who I am?”

Lee shrugged out of the younger man’s grip. “You’re the Avatar, obviously,” he said curtly. “But you must be looking for someone else. I’ve never met you before.”

The Avatar’s eyes went wide, making him look even more boyish. Lee turned back to the door, letting himself in and heading for the stairs. But the younger man hadn’t gotten the message yet, somehow, for he followed Lee inside, still rambling on all the way up to the second floor.

“Okay, you’re not interested in capturing me or whatever anymore, fine. That’s great, really.” With a burst of airbending, he flipped over Lee’s head, coming to rest on the second floor landing, blocking his path. “Don’t think I’m not grateful for that. But your uncle really needs you.” Lee looked up at him blankly from the top step, not understanding anything he had just said. The Avatar frowned. “I would have thought  _ he _ meant something to you, at least.”

He might not have known what the Avatar was talking about, but Lee could certainly tell  _ that _ was meant to be an accusation. Now his patience was really wearing thin. “I already told you, I don’t have an uncle. Never have.” He tried to push past the younger man, but found himself repelled with surprising strength. “You’ve got me confused with someone else,” he insisted, seeing the Avatar wasn’t intending to let him go any further.

“You keep saying that,” the Avatar replied. “Do you really expect me to believe I’ve mistaken  _ your _ face?”

Lee scowled at the reference to his scar. “You must have, since we’ve never met before,” he bit back. “Now let me go.” He tried to push past the Avatar again, and once again the younger man shifted to block his path, pushing him back towards the stairs. But before he could say anything else, the apartment door that Lee had been trying to reach swung open.

“Lee?” Kara asked in concern, stepping into the doorway. “What’s going on?” She had an apron tied over her green dress, one hand resting on her stomach, which made her look particularly pregnant at the moment.

The Avatar’s jaw nearly hit the floor.

* * *

In retrospect, Aang would realize he had run off in too great a haste, without fully understanding how things stood. But at the time, he had assumed he knew enough - Zuko was somewhere in the lower ring, and all he’d have to do was find him. After all, he’d never had much difficulty getting the former prince to take notice of him before. So as soon as he’d wrapped up his meetings with the provisional government council, Aang had set out for the lower ring to begin his search.

When he had finally found Zuko, only for Zuko to play dumb, insisting his name was Lee and refusing to even acknowledge his uncle, Aang had been confused. But throughout their entire awkward chase into the tenement building and up the stairs, he hadn’t realized just how little he had a handle on the situation. Not until the apartment door opened.

“Lee?” the woman at the door said, as if playing along with Zuko’s charade. “What’s going on?”

As blindsided as Aang was, he still managed to find his voice before Zuko found a suitable excuse. “Katara?” he exclaimed, for the woman who stood before him was unmistakably Katara - six years older than he’d last seen her, and even more beautiful, but with the same sparkling blue eyes that Aang could never have forgotten. She even wore her hair the same way, the twin loops framing her face, and just as when he’d first seen Zuko in the street, Aang had no doubt about her identity.

But at the same time, his mind rebelled against this certainty, for it made no sense. There was no explanation he could conceive of for why Katara should be in the lower ring of Ba Sing Se, dressed in dull khaki green like an Earth Kingdom peasant, apparently living in the same shabby tenement building as Zuko, and - most incomprehensibly of all, to his mind - expecting a baby.

“Katara,” Aang repeated. “What happened to you?”

She turned to him, and those blue eyes met his without even a hint of recognition. “Who’s Katara?”

Her question hit him like a blow. Deception and obstinacy from Zuko were no great shock, but from her it was different. How could  _ she _ look him in the eye and pretend she didn’t know him, didn’t know her own name, and do it all so easily?

“The Avatar has me confused with someone else,” Zuko finally spoke up. “And I guess you, too.” He crossed the small landing to the doorway where Katara stood, and Aang was too stunned this time to block his path.

Katara’s eyebrows shot up. “The Avatar?” She made a hasty half-bow in Aang’s direction, a show of deference as best as rough lower ring manners could manage. “I’m sorry, we’re not who you’re looking for, but if we can help you in any way…”

“No!” Aang protested, taking a step towards her. Zuko shifted closer, one hand resting on Katara’s back, but Aang didn’t have the presence of mind just then to consider the significance of that gesture. “Come on, Katara, you know me...you  _ both _ know me…”

Katara and Zuko exchanged a wordless glance. “We don’t…” Zuko began. But he was cut off by another voice from within the apartment.

“Daddy! Daddy!” a small boy was calling out, pushing his way past Katara’s legs. “Daddy, guess what I did!” The dark-haired, blue-eyed child was bouncing with excitement and reaching both arms up towards Zuko, who stooped over and scooped him up with instinctive ease.

“Not now, Hiro,” Zuko said firmly, but he gave the boy a placating kiss on the temple. The child - Hiro - pouted and whined, unsatisfied, and Aang’s overwhelmed brain finally caught up with what he was seeing, putting all the pieces together.

Zuko had a son with blue eyes. Katara was going to have a baby. They both lived in the same tenement. And Katara’s hand was now resting on the crook of Zuko’s arm, the same way his hand had naturally found its place on her back a moment ago.

“You two are together?” Aang blurted out. “Katara, how could you be with  _ him?” _

Zuko glared at him. “This is my wife, Kara. I don’t know who you think we are…”

“Of course!” Aang cut him off, snapping his fingers as he realized his mistake. “It’s who  _ you _ think you are!” What he had been able to read of Zuko’s file suggested he had been in the Dai Li’s custody for some time, and the Dai Li had been known to mess with people’s memories in the past. They must have done the same to him, and Katara, made them forget who they really were. 

“We’ve seen this before!” Aang went on excitedly, confidence boosted by having figured things out. He pointed at Katara. “When Jet was brainwashed, we got his memories back thanks to your healing powers!” 

Katara only gave him a blank stare in return.

“Oh, right, I guess you wouldn’t remember that, either,” Aang amended sheepishly. 

“Let me get this straight,” Zuko said impatiently, adjusting his hold on the still-whining child in his arms. “You think we’ve been brainwashed by the Dai Li?”

“You must have been,” Aang insisted. “It’s the only explanation.” Obviously, nothing about their current situation could have come about if Katara knew who Zuko really was, and brainwashing was the only way she could have forgotten that.

“But we’ve never had any dealings with the Dai Li,” Zuko protested.

“They would have erased your memories of them, of course,” Aang pointed out with a shrug. “But you both disappeared just before Azula infiltrated the city. They probably took you then.”

“That doesn’t…” Zuko began, but this time Katara interrupted him.

“Lee,” she said cautiously. “There was that time, right when we arrived in the city…”

Zuko looked at her in surprise. “The Dai Li weren’t involved in that,” he argued. “And don’t tell me you actually believe his crazy story?”

“I don’t believe it,” Katara replied, causing Aang to let out an exasperated sigh. “But I don’t know if it’s really so crazy.” Turning back to Aang, she said, “Can you give us any reason to believe you?”

Aang quickly brightened again. If Katara at least was willing to listen, he had his opportunity. “Even if you don’t remember me, I still know you,” he said eagerly. “You were born at the south pole and you were the last waterbender there. Your mother was killed in a Fire Nation raid and your necklace belonged to her.” Katara’s eyes widened, and she put a hand to the necklace in question, which stood out in stark contrast from the rest of her green attire. Encouraged by this, Aang went on. “Your father left after that to fight in the war and you and your brother were left behind with your grandmother.”

Next Aang turned to Zuko. “You were the heir to the throne of the Fire Nation until you were thirteen, when your father challenged you to an Agni Kai for speaking out of turn. He gave you that scar and banished you until…”

“No!” Zuko cut him off with sudden vehemence. His arms tightened around his son, who had abruptly quieted, and was looking between Aang and Zuko in confusion. “You don’t know  _ anything _ about me,” Zuko spat, handing the child over to Katara and ushering them both back into the apartment. “You don’t know us, and you can’t just show up and tell us we don’t know who we are.”

“But I…” Aang protested weakly, trying to catch Katara’s eye over Zuko’s shoulder. It was no good. She wasn’t even looking in his direction, preoccupied with her son. Whatever he had said wrong, he had apparently lost her tentative trust as well.

“Leave us alone,” Zuko concluded, before he shut the door in Aang’s face.

* * *

Once Lee had closed the door on their unwelcome caller, Kara set Hiro down, and the four-year-old immediately ran back to his father. “Daddy,” he protested impatiently. “You didn’t guess!”

Kara smiled at her son’s persistence as Lee placed his hands on his hips and looked down at the boy seriously. “Did you help Mama with something?”

“Yeah!” Hiro exclaimed, clapping his hands. “I helped Mama make dinner!”

“Did you now?” Lee asked, raising his eyebrow in Kara’s direction. He was smiling, too, the distress of the Avatar’s wild claims having quickly passed.

“He stirred the pot,” Kara clarified. “With supervision.”

“How lucky Mama is to have a little helper,” Lee said proudly, picking Hiro up and kissing the top of his head again.

Dinner passed as usual once again. Kara ate with good appetite, now that she was past the worst stage of her morning sickness. Hiro’s happy chatter filled the air, and Lee remained patiently engaged in their son’s rambling conversation, with Kara providing occasional commentary. After dinner, Hiro wanted to help with the washing up, too, so Lee sat him on the counter next to the wash basin and gave him a dishcloth, then held each plate as the little boy dried it. Kara took the “dry” plates from Lee and surreptitiously finished the job with her bending before putting them away in the cupboard.

At bedtime, Hiro asked for a story. Kara began the tale of the snow gull and the fox, but Hiro interrupted her. “No, Daddy tell me a Grandpa story.”

Lee acquiesced, and Kara moved aside to make room for him to sit on the edge of Hiro’s bed. Though Kara knew many more traditional children’s stories than Lee did, somehow it was Lee’s stories about his father that were Hiro’s favorites.

“When I was just a little bigger than you,” Lee began, smoothing Hiro’s dark hair away from his face. “My father taught me how to swim…”

As Lee told the familiar story, Kara watched Hiro’s eyes drift shut. She knew Lee had to be right, that the Avatar’s brainwashing story was complete nonsense, or at least nothing to do with them. She put her hand to her necklace again. Still, for a moment…

When they left Hiro’s room, Kara got down her sewing basket and sat at the table again. Tonight, she had socks to darn, and was content to fix her mind on that task. But Lee apparently knew what she had been thinking.

“It was a lucky guess,” he said, standing behind her and resting his hands on her shoulders. “What he said about your necklace - lots of women wear their mother’s jewelry.”

Kara set down the needle she had been about to thread. “I know,” she replied, leaning her cheek against one of his hands. “And everything he said after that was wrong, but…” She shrugged, twisting around in her chair to look up at her husband. “It would have been nice if he was right about my father, I guess.”

Lee cupped one hand under her chin. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, then leaned down and kissed her. Below her ribcage, Kara felt a sudden flurry of movement that made her smile against her husband’s lips. That had been happening more often lately.

“Is she kicking again?” Lee asked.

“You know it could be another boy,” Kara reminded him.

“No,” Lee insisted, smiling at their inside joke as he took the seat next to her at the table. “Definitely a girl this time.”

Kara shook her head, picking up her needle again and threading it deftly. She set to work on her darning, putting all thoughts of the Avatar and his strange tales from her mind. Her family was all here with her. No need to go chasing after ghosts.

* * *

The next day was Kara’s market day. Leaving Hiro with the widow Peng and her grandchildren, she set off, basket under her arm, to do her usual grocery shopping.

Her first stop was the butcher’s stall, where she placed her usual order. Toma the butcher dropped the cut of salt chickenpork on his scale. “That’ll be five copper pieces.”

“Five?” Kara repeated, frowning. “Toma, I buy the same thing every time I come in here. It’s always two copper pieces.”

“Yeah, well,” Toma said roughly, shrugging one shoulder. “The damned rioters stole most of my stock, so now it’s five.”

“You can’t just raise prices like that!” Kara protested.

Toma was unmoved. “I’ve still got a family to feed,” he argued, running a rag over the blade of his knife.

“So do I,” Kara shot back.

Toma looked up from his knife. “Then you’d better pay up.”

Kara considered for a moment, then let out a frustrated sigh. “Give me three copper’s worth.” Toma removed the meat from the scale and cut away a substantial portion - it was going to be a thin stew that she made tonight. But if she had to spend that much extra money on food, Kara would rather put it towards rice or vegetables where it would go further.

Unfortunately, once she left the butcher’s stall with her smaller than usual parcel, she found it was the same story everywhere in the market. Stores had been looted, supply lines disturbed, and now everything was in short stock and selling at high prices. After the summer riots the previous year, something similar had happened, but the Dai Li had imposed strict rationing and price controls. No one had eaten particularly well, but no one had gone broke to feed their families, either. The Avatar and his provisional government, it seemed, had not thought of this.

Perhaps, Kara thought reluctantly as she headed home, Lee had a point. Crazy brainwashing stories aside, she wanted to believe the Avatar was still capable of doing good in the world. But so far, from what she’d seen, his intervention in Ba Sing Se wasn’t producing great results. The lighter than usual basket under her arm was testimony to that.

As unhappy as she was with her purchases, Kara was even less pleased to see that the Avatar himself had returned, and was waiting in the street outside their apartment building. He was engaged in conversation with a taller man dressed in blue who had his back to her, and he didn’t notice Kara immediately. She briefly wondered if she could duck back around the corner and wait for him to go. But before she had the chance, the Avatar glanced down the street and saw her.

“There she is!” he said excitedly, swatting his companion on the shoulder to direct his attention. Resigned, Kara headed down the street towards them to get the inevitable confrontation over with. “Katara!” the Avatar called out to her, the wrong name again. “I’m glad we found  _ you  _ this time.”

It was on the tip of Kara’s tongue to correct him bluntly and remind him that her husband had told him in no uncertain terms to leave them alone. But before she could get the words out, she looked at the face of the other man with him.

Her basket fell to the ground, spilling its meager contents, and Kara nearly followed it as her knees buckled under her. Someone caught her, and when her head stopped spinning, Kara saw that it was the stranger, who was no stranger at all, but somehow, impossibly…

“Sokka?” she said weakly.

“It’s really you,” her brother replied, pulling her into a tight embrace. Still unsteady on her feet, Kara leaned heavily on him. “You remember me.”

Joy mingled with relief was plain in his voice, but Kara was overwhelmed by far more complicated feelings. “You can’t be here,” she protested, tears stinging her eyes even as she rested her forehead on his very solid shoulder. “This can’t be real.”

With some difficulty, Sokka held her away at arms’ length. “Why not?” he asked, a hint of alarm creeping into his voice - that grown man’s voice that somehow unmistakably belonged to the child she remembered. Through her tears, Kara found herself studying every detail of his face, also older but painfully familiar - eyes the same shade of blue as her own, their mother’s eyes, and the same square jaw and sharp nose as their father…

“You were dead,” she replied, her trembling voice just above a whisper, reaching out hesitantly to touch his face. She found it as solid as the rest of him. “You died with everyone else.”

Sokka pulled her back into a crushing embrace. The Avatar might have said something then, but Kara didn’t catch the words. She felt dizzy again, and her head was pounding, but her brother remained real and solid and alive. Sokka was alive. She had seen him die but somehow he was alive.

He all but carried her into the building. Kara was vaguely aware of the anxious widow Peng stepping out into the hall. Then they were going up the steps, which seemed to be rocking like a ship at sea. And why were the lights spinning too? 

The next thing Kara knew, she was sitting on the low sofa in her apartment, still leaning on Sokka, with Hiro nestled in her lap. Her basket had been set on the table, its contents gathered up from the street. The Avatar stood awkwardly by, while Peng brought a damp cloth over from the wash basin and pressed it to Kara’s forehead.

“There, now,” Peng said soothingly. “You didn’t have fainting spells like that last time, did you?”

It took Kara a moment to understand that she meant the last time she had been pregnant. “No,” she confirmed weakly. Her pregnancy with Hiro had been, thankfully, uncomplicated.

“Hmm,” Peng hummed, adjusting the cloth. “Well, I had them with my youngest daughter, and everything turned out alright. It happens sometimes.”

Kara sat up a bit straighter, the coolness of the damp cloth having cleared her mind a bit. She knew what had caused her to faint, and it wasn’t because she was pregnant. But the Avatar was still there, and so was her brother, and having recovered from the shock didn’t answer any of her questions.

“Mama?” Hiro asked from her lap. He sounded unusually timid. “You feel better?”

Kara gave him a reassuring smile. “Yes, sweetie, much better.” She couldn’t remember how Hiro had gotten here - presumably the widow Peng had brought him up.

“You wouldn’t let him go,” Sokka said, as if reading her thoughts. “You barely had the strength to stand, but you wouldn’t let go of him.”

Kara frowned, her memory drawing a blank. But of course, she wasn’t sure how much she trusted her own memory just then. “I’m sorry if I scared you,” she said to Hiro.

“S’okay,” Hiro replied, already brightening now that he saw she was fine.

“Why don’t you come back downstairs with me, Hiro?” the widow Peng suggested. She met Kara’s eye, and Kara nodded in agreement. There was much she and Sokka needed to discuss. Giving her son a quick kiss, she entrusted him once again to her neighbor’s care.

As soon as the widow Peng had shut the door, it was the Avatar who spoke up first. “Now do you believe me?” he asked, just a touch too smug for Kara’s liking. He took a step towards the sofa, and she held up a hand to stop him.

“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” Kara said firmly, removing the damp cloth from her forehead. Though she was still confused, she no longer felt faint at all. She turned to Sokka - who was just as real, just as familiar and just as different as he had been before - and said bluntly, “I saw you die.”

Sokka reached out and took her hand gently. “When was that?”

“The day our village was attacked,” Kara replied. Tears stung her eyes at the memory, still so vivid even if now suspect. The black snow, the chaos and confusion of the red armored soldiers everywhere, the man in her house with her mother, her father cut down trying to reach them, her brother’s body lying broken in the snow… “They killed our whole family that day.”

“No,” Sokka said, squeezing her hand tighter. “Not our whole family. Mom, yes, but the rest of us survived. I’m here, and Dad is back at home.”

Hope bubbled up in her heart. Her father could still be alive! She wanted to believe him, even if his story made no sense, just as part of her had wanted to believe the Avatar the day before, only about that much. But then he said, “Katara, listen…”

“No,” Kara said, pulling her hand away and getting to her feet. That was perhaps unwise, for she felt a little lightheaded again as soon as she stood, and had to brace herself against one of the chairs at the table. The Avatar started towards her again, but she waved him away, and this time managed not to faint. “That’s not who I am. My name is Kara.”

“Okay,” Sokka replied. “Kara, then.” She could hear the disappointment in his voice, but at least he was listening to her. “I know you have no reason to trust Aang right now. But you  _ do _ know who I am, even if your memory tells you I’m supposed to be dead.” She turned to face him again, still bracing herself with one hand on the chair behind her. Sure enough, it was still her brother’s face. “Isn’t that enough to tell you something strange is going on here?”

“I don’t know what it means,” Kara insisted, shaking her head.

“It means your memories aren’t right,” the Avatar spoke up from behind her. “The Dai Li…” But he broke off as Sokka shot him a glare over Kara’s shoulder, even before she could object herself.

“Aang,” Sokka said warningly. “Maybe you should let me handle this from here. You still have the Earth King to find.”

“But I…” the Avatar started to protest. Kara braced herself, shoulders tense, waiting for more wild claims and accusations. But thankfully, he seemed to think better of it. “Alright,” he gave in. “I’ll leave you two for now.” Kara heard him heading for the door, still refusing to turn and look at him. Before he left the apartment, the Avatar couldn’t resist adding, “I hope you’ll be ready to talk to me soon, Katara.”

“That’s not my name,” Kara whispered as the door closed behind him.

Sokka came closer, taking her by the hand and guiding her to sit in the chair she had been leaning on. “Aang means well,” he said apologetically, taking the seat next to her at the table. “Even if he sometimes rushes into things without thinking about what he’s doing.”

Kara gave a bitter laugh. “That sounds like something my husband would say.”

“Right,” Sokka said, fingers drumming on the table. “Your husband. Not a big fan of the Avatar, then?”

Kara leaned her elbows on the table, forehead resting on one hand. “Are you going to tell me my husband is a banished Fire Nation prince, too?”

There was an awkward moment of silence, which was enough to tell Kara that her brother wanted to agree with that assessment. But when he finally spoke, he merely said, “How about you tell me who he is instead.”

Kara sighed, sitting back in her chair and resting one hand on her stomach. The baby was moving again. “Lee is a refugee, just like me.”

“Huh,” Sokka said, brows drawing together. “But he is a firebender, isn’t he?”

“His dad was a Fire Nation deserter,” Kara explained, a bit defensive. There had always been people who were suspicious of Lee because of his firebending, before they got to know him. “He’s suffered from the war as much as anyone.”

“I see,” Sokka said slowly, giving her a scrutinizing look. “And how did you two meet?”

In spite of all the strangeness of the situation, talking to her brother whom she knew was supposed to be dead, Kara smiled at that memory. “I stole a waterbending scroll from him.”

Sokka blinked in surprise. “What, was he a pirate?”

“How did you…” But Kara shook her head. “I know it sounds bad, but he was pretty desperate when he joined their crew, and he didn’t…” She shrugged, not wanting to get into Lee’s whole life history. “Well, he helped me escape from them, in the end.”

“And then you came to Ba Sing Se together?” Sokka prompted, still studying her curiously.

Kara nodded, shifting in her chair. “We got married soon after we arrived here.”

“A whirlwind romance, huh?” Sokka said with a teasing smile, which allowed Kara to relax a bit. “But look, about the pirate story,” he went on. “I remember that, too, but differently.”

It was Kara’s turn to be surprised. “You do?” How could he remember, when she had been alone...

“You and I were traveling with Aang,” Sokka explained, contradicting her thoughts. “You stole the scroll from the pirates. But Zuko helped them capture you, and tried to use your necklace to bribe you into turning over the Avatar.”

“No,” Kara said firmly, shaking her head. That wasn’t how it had happened. She didn’t know anyone named Zuko. “You weren’t there.”

Sokka reached out and took hold of her hand again. “Then where was I?”

And Kara had no answer for that.

* * *

Lee half expected that they had not seen the last of the Avatar. Though he still had no idea what to make of the young man’s claims about him and Kara, it was obvious that the Avatar himself believed them, and Lee doubted he would give up so easily just from being told to go away.

What he had not expected to find when he came home that evening was a Water Tribe man in their apartment, playing with Hiro. Nor could he have guessed that Kara would introduce him as Sokka, her brother, even as Lee could see the clear family resemblance between them.

“Your brother is dead,” Lee objected bluntly.

Kara shrugged, folding her arms self-consciously over her stomach. “That’s what I thought.”

Sokka hefted a giggling Hiro onto his shoulders with a grin. “It would seem the stories of my untimely demise were somewhat exaggerated.”

“They weren’t  _ stories,”  _ Lee protested, reaching for Kara’s hand. “You remember it.”

“I did,” Kara replied, not meeting his eye but squeezing his hand. “I still do. But…” She looked up at him helplessly. “It’s him.”

Lee was at a loss. He’d never had a reason to doubt his wife before, and he believed her now - she would know her own brother, certainly. But if she was questioning her own memories… Wordlessly, he pulled her towards their bedroom, shutting the door behind them so they could speak in private.

“The Avatar brought him here,” he said in a low voice. “Didn’t he?”

Kara nodded. “I didn’t want to believe him,” she whispered, eyes downcast again. Lee gently lifted her chin with two fingers, tilting her face up to him so he could see the tears welling in her eyes. “But, Lee, if  _ that _ memory is wrong…”

He pulled her into a hug before she could finish that thought. “Maybe some of your memories are confused,” he said firmly, rubbing soothing circles on her back. “Maybe some of mine are, too. It can happen. But we both know who we are.”

Kara nodded against his chest. He held her in silence for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was steadier. “Sokka wants us to meet with the Avatar.” She shifted in his arms, pushing away slightly so she could look up at him. “Just to talk, about what we remember and...what they think.”

“Is there any point?” Lee asked skeptically. The Avatar certainly hadn’t seemed inclined to listen to them yesterday, and Lee still couldn’t help thinking he’d do better to focus on cleaning up the mess he’d made of the city government before he worried about them.

But Kara was resolute. “Sokka says my father is still alive,” she replied, and the hope in her voice was enough that Lee knew just like that he was going to give in. “If it’s really possible…”

“Of course you have to find out,” Lee agreed. Whatever was going on, if there was a chance she could see her family again, she deserved that much.

He’d want the same, if it were his father.


End file.
